Swift by name . . .
QUESTION What is the fastest bird in horizontal flight? How is this measured?
THE common swift (apus apus) is the fastest bird accurately recorded in level flight. A Swedish team led by Dr Per Henningsson has recorded top speeds of 69.3 mph for flocks of swifts flying horizontally and even upwards.
The common swift is a remarkable creature: it spends most of its life on the wing, flying continuously day and night, covering over 550 miles at a time.
The birds migrate more than 4,000 miles from Africa to Britain in late April. In its lifetime, a bird may fly fourmillion miles, which is equivalent of going to the Moon and back eight times.
The birds reach their top speed during bouts of mating known as screaming parties, where you will see flocks careering madly at high speed around rooftops and swooping very close to houses, especially towards dusk.
Henningson and his team used a stereo high-speed camera set up to measure the birds’ flight speeds with high accuracy.
The team found that during these screaming parties, the birds flew at more than twice the speed as during their migration flights.
It has been claimed that the whitethroated needletail (Hirundapus
caudacutus), a relative of the common swift that is also known as the needletailed swift or spine-tailed swift, may reach speeds of up to an impressive 105 mph in horizontal flight.
Another candidate for the world’s fastest bird is the grey-headed albatross (Thalassarche chrysostoma).
A satellite tagged specimen was clocked at 78.9mph during a storm as it returned to its nest. However, there is a suspicion that this was wind assisted!
Another surprisingly fast bird is Anna’s hummingbird (Calypte anna), which reaches speeds of 60.4 mph during diving courtship displays in front of females — an extreme speed considering the bird’s tiny size.
The eider (Somateria mollissima), a common large sea duck, is thought to be the fastest bird in steady level flight, sustaining 47.2 mph.
Because of its high weight-to-wing area ratio, speed is vital to the eider to produce enough lift in its natural environment of windy coastal areas.
The fastest bird of all is widely acknowledged to be the peregrine falcon (Falco peregrinus).
During its hunting dive, known as a stoop, it can reach speeds of 186mph, achieved by free-falling. Justin Morris, St Davids, Pembrokeshire.
QUESTION Why is the Llano Estacado, or Staked Plains, in Texas so called?
STAKED is a mis-applied translation of the Spanish estacado, which means stockade.
In popular folklore, it was believed that early Spanish settlers used wooden stakes to mark their way across the enormous and largely featureless plains to enable them to find their way back, and to tether their horses to stop them wandering off.
Either way, this would have been a challenge due to the lack of trees for hundreds of miles on the High Plains, an area of over 37,000 square miles.
But in geological terms, the edges of the High Plains do look as if they have been palisaded, which is the term for a fence of wooden stakes fixed in the ground, forming an enclosure.
Llano Estacado is more accurately translated as palisaded plains. This can be clearly seen when flying over the region, as I often did in the Nineties. The area is notable for cotton production, which extended even to the edges of the runway at the airport at Lubbock, the region’s largest city, which is best-known for being the birthplace of Buddy Holly. Peter Scott MBE, Past president, the International Cotton Association, New Milton, Hants.
QUESTION Are any British towns or cities twinned with a counterpart in India?
THE metropolitan borough of Sandwell, on the west side of Birmingham, which includes the towns of West Bromwich, Smethwick, Oldbury, Tipton, Rowley Regis and Wednesbury, is twinned with Amritsar. It is the only place in Britain to have an Indian twin.
Amritsar is a city of 1.3million in the northern Punjab state and is 15 miles from the border with Pakistan.
It was the site of the Amritsar massacre, also known as the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, of 1919 when Colonel Reginald Dyer ordered his soldiers to open fire into a crowd of unarmed Indians protesting at the British government’s forced conscription of Indian soldiers.
At least 379 people were killed. The massacre stirred nationalist feelings across India and had a profound effect on Mahatma Gandhi.
The city is the centre of Sikhism and is famous for its Golden Temple. There is a large Sikh population in Sandwell. Bob Dunn, Oldbury, W. Mids.
QUESTION During the Battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759, many French and Royal Navy ships were lost. Are their whereabouts known and are any designated as war graves?
FURTHER to the earlier answer, Captain Edward Hawke, the victor of the Battle of Quiberon Bay, died in his country home, Hawke House, a very grand dwelling in Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey.
Georgian and now Grade II listed with a plaque stating he lived there, it once had vast grounds on both sides of the road. It has been split into three attractive properties.
The local primary, Hawkedale School, is named after Captain Hawke, who lived in Sunbury for a decade before his death in 1781.
A small new development of properties close to Hawke House includes a road called Quiberon Court, so in a small way, his achievements are remembered. Jan Williams, Sunbury-on-Thames, Surrey.
IS THERE a question to which you have always wanted to know the answer? Or do you know the answer to a question raised here? Send your questions and answers to: Charles Legge, Answers To Correspondents, Scottish Daily Mail, 20 Waterloo Street, Glasgow G2 6DB; fax them to 0141 331 4739 or email them to charles.legge@dailymail.co.uk. A selection will be published but we are not able to enter into individual correspondence.